One of the most important components of known fragrance compositions is patchouli oil, obtained from the leaves of Pogostemon cablin Benth. occurring in Malaysia. Almost all of the conventional perfume sprays, deodorant sprays, and perfumes contain this fragrance component, which is capable of decisively impressing its character on the note of a fragrance, in proportions of between 0.1 and 50% by weight.
Efforts have been made for quite some time to replace the concentrate, consisting of at least 24 ingredients, by a more readily producible material. The attempts made heretofore must be considered unsatisfactory. Although it has been asserted that 3-methyl-9-methyleneendo-tricyclo[5.2.1.0.sup.2,6 ]dec-3-en-8(exo)-ol "is said to reproduce several of the typical fragrance notes" (cf. DOS No. 3,120,700), this complex compound is unsuited as a substitute for patchouli oil, if for no other reason than that its manufacture is much too expensive.
The methyl ether of cyclododec-2-en-1-ol is known. This compound was characterized structurally and spectrometrically during the course of a study of the alkaline decomposition of cyclic, conjugated p-tosylhydrazones (Grandi et al., J. Chem. Res. (S), 1979, 246). There is no mention in this reference regarding possible fragrance properties.